Solving Power and Transportation Needs

A solution to your transportation and power needs, from the Have-More Plan.

By Ed Robinson

| March/April 1970

A baby tractor with the full complement of attachments offers the small-acreage farmer low cost power for all field and garden operations.Photo by MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

A utility trailer plus the family car is worth consideration. This home-made trailer is built low to facilitate loading, carries 2 animals and has many other uses.Photo by MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

A civilian jeep works as tractor, passenger car or small truck and as auxiliary power plant for running all sorts of machinery from saws to your freezer in an emergency.Photo by MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

An army cart holds about four times the load of an ordinary wheelbarrow and is still easy to manage.Photo by MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

A Station Wagon is an all-purpose car for country homes. Unfortunately its cost is high and the wood construction needs yearly paint or varnish.Photo by MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Some kind of car is almost a necessity in the country. Even so, present day cars are not very satisfactory for productive country living.

Today, cars are made primarily for city dwellers. That is they are made to transport people and only people. On a small farm there's a lot of other things in addition to people that you want to move. To name a few: lumber, hay, grain, livestock, poultry, firewood, gravel, cement, earth and produce. On a large farm, a truck is probably a worthwhile investment. But, on a small place, there is not enough work for a truck and there's many a need that a truck won't solve.

There are countless jobs around a small place that you can get done a lot easier with some power equipment. Until recently, the manufacturers more or less turned their backs on the small farmer. Now they realize the terrific potentiality in supplying the small landowner and a number of power units for the small place are coming on the market.

In trying to decide how best to solve our transportation and power needs, we made up a table, which is included in this article's image gallery. Perhaps this will help you solve your problems. All prices are estimated for new equipment. Obviously, good secondhand equipment may be bought cheaper.

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For example, in place of the 9,000 "garden type tractors" manufactured yearly before the war, more than 100,000 are expected to be sold post-war. The "garden tractor" people are trying to put out better and more powerful machines. At the same time, the manufacturers of large-scale tractors are developing smaller models for use on farms of 40 acres or less. All this can only result in better and cheaper power equipment for the small land-owner.

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